


Till Time and Times Are Done

by stella_bella



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stella_bella/pseuds/stella_bella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is summoned to Arthur's chambers, but not for chores.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Time and Times Are Done

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats.

Gaius is in the middle of a lecture on the varying solubility of thistlewort when the knock interrupts.

“Those plants which have been gathered at the full moon need only be added to water that has been boiled and then removed from the flame. However, if the plant is picked during the waning moon--”

Merlin snaps his head around, already half out of his chair as the door opens, hoping it’s someone needing a medical consult. Preferably a very long medical consult.

Instead, a castle guard pokes his helmet around the door apologetically, and looks to Merlin. “The prince requests your presence in his chambers immediately.”

The words have barely left his lips before he has to back out of the doorway as Merlin fairly leaps through, only stopping to throw a cheerful salute over his shoulder and offer some inane comment about duty calling. Gaius turns away from the closing door, shaking his head with a sort of fond exasperation. As he begins to gather supplies for Lady Anthea’s calming tincture, he offers a moment of thanks that Merlin is, indeed, not destined to follow in his footsteps as court physician.

Merlin takes the stairs two at a time, earning a frown from one of the chambermaids, who clutches her supply of fresh linen a little closer, away from his energetic limbs.

Arthur’s door is closed, and Merlin doesn’t bother to knock, as usual, before slipping inside. The lamps are not yet lit, even though it is near to sundown, and the weak glow of afternoon sunlight makes it much darker than the corridor outside. It’s quieter too, the solid oak door shutting out the sounds of life, and Merlin is just turning around when something slams into him.

He’s pinned, back flat against the paneled oak, and there’s half a second where his mind goes utterly blank at the unexpectedness of it.

Then he recognizes Arthur, face shadowed but still familiar in the half-light.

For a very long moment, no one moves.

Arthur steps closer, bracing his right arm across Merlin’s chest, and lowers his head until their cheeks brush. The air is suddenly difficult to find.

“…Arthur?” His voice sounds strange, even to his own ears, and Merlin is not entirely sure what will happen next, what he would prefer to happen next - Arthur to step back, slap his shoulder and fall over laughing with the great trick he’s played, or-- or--

Arthur offers a sharp inhale as response, and Merlin holds his own breath.

“Tell me if you do not want this.” The words are whispered, roughly, into Merlin’s neck. His pulse leaps under the press of soft lips, the scrape of teeth as Arthur nips along his jaw line.

“Tell me and I swear I will never touch you again.”

Lips brush his, just the corner, just barely. He can feel the warmth radiating, feel the ragged breath against his face.

“Tell me, but tell me now. Otherwise…”

Their foreheads pressed together, damp tendrils of Arthur’s hair sticking to Merlin’s face, and he is hot and cold all over, trembling with a sudden flood of emotion. Joy and desire, fear and relief are warring in his veins, spiking his blood with fever, and the rapid beat of his heart thunders so loudly he is certain it will be heard.

Merlin closes his eyes, feels his lashes brush Arthur’s cheek. A swell of magic rises from his core, from some place deep inside, and he has to fight to keep it down, keep it hidden. _No, not yet. Please, not yet._

Arthur isn’t breathing either, and then there is a touch of air, fresh and missing his scent, that passes lightly over Merlin’s face, his closed eyelids. It is followed by a loosening of Arthur’s iron grip, and then swiftly by a wave of inner panic, by the knowledge that he has taken too long, has left the question unanswered. Arthur is withdrawing, marshalling his fathomless reserves of strength and dignity.

He will step back. He will step past, through the door. Merlin will be left with a tingling warmth that will seep away into a coldness in his belly. There will be chores, and solemn words, dismissive gestures and eyes that never meet. Arthur will never look - really look - at him again, never punch his arm in solidarity, never shout, never laugh or smile or touch him again.

Merlin shoves forward, blindly, and forces their lips together. His aim is off, eyes shut tightly still, but Arthur catches him anyway. Pushes back, pushes in, slides his tongue between Merlin’s lips and his leg between Merlin’s thighs. He releases his right arm and instead uses it to wind in Merlin’s hair, to grip and tip his head to fit.

Arthur presses into him, hip to chest, and Merlin can feel the grain of the wood behind him, can feel the lines of bone and muscle underneath Arthur’s linen. Unsure of what to do, he settles for wrapping his arms around Arthur’s shoulders, pulling him even closer.

His lips are swollen when Arthur pulls back, though he doesn’t go far, just enough to breathe, and then he is back, dipping down again and again into Merlin’s mouth, gentle sucking kisses that leave fire in their wake, a burn that spreads and surges, higher and brighter and hungrier until Merlin is aching and so desperate.

“Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”  Arthur's voice is lower than usual, and breathless.

Merlin stumbles as he is reluctantly released, legs unused to carrying their own weight, and he strips while walking. He doesn’t try to make it graceful, doesn’t try to impress. He knows he doesn’t have anything worth looking at anyway.

Despite that, he’s barely crawled over the satin coverlet when Arthur jumps him, heated skin pressed against his back.

Arthur pulls him up to sitting, one hand spread across his chest and the other-- the other--

Merlin drops his head back with a gasp as fingers close over his cock. It shouldn’t be different, not from the hundreds of times he’s done it to himself, after all, a hand is just a hand. But Arthur’s hands are warmer than his, fingers thicker and more callused. His ring catches on the slide up, delicious jolt of pain-pleasure, and Merlin groans, fists one hand in the rumpled bed covers and wraps his other a bit awkwardly around Arthur’s neck.

Lips and teeth make a home on his throat, his jaw, the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and he spares a dizzy moment to be thankful he routinely wears a scarf, especially around Gaius.

Arthur’s right hand digs into his chest, as though he could burrow his way straight through and inside, where there is nothing but fever and burning desire, nothing but a heart that beats to the sound of his name. _Arthur, Arthur, please._

Merlin realizes he’s spoken aloud, his voice fractured and foreign. Sweat beads on his arms, his chest, his neck, and Arthur licks at it, speeding up his strokes.

He sinks his teeth into Merlin’s muscle and skin, keeping himself under control, as Merlin shakes himself apart, crying out, eyes wide open but unseeing, lost in the grip of ecstatic release.

A suspended moment, golden in the last rays of the setting sun.

Merlin opens his eyes to the dust motes that float in the sunset streaming through the windows. Red and orange and hazy, and he has to blink a couple times to clear his thoughts. Arthur releases his neck, and the rush of blood to the teeth marks there drags a faint twitch from Merlin.

Arthur breathes at his back, chest rising and pressing into Merlin on short, staccato inhales. He’s been holding himself together by a shred of will, by the desire to see what he can do to Merlin, what Merlin will let him do.

After all this, and despite his own trembling desire, Arthur lays Merlin down gently, careful with his arms full of narrow limbs. Merlin feels the covers rise up to meet him, smells their scent of cloth and feathers, of soap, and ever so faintly, of Arthur. There is movement, the bed shifting underneath them, and Arthur is back, solid warm strength along his spine, his hips, his legs.

A hand splays itself along his hipbone, and Arthur murmurs into the nape of his neck, soft kisses interspersed with words that Merlin cannot understand, but he catches phrases, pieces-- _beautiful, beautiful, Merlin._

He kisses the bumps at the top of his spine, his shoulder blades, and follows the path of vertebra downwards, each knob of bone earning a feather-light touch.

There is no strength in Merlin’s limbs, those long coltish limbs that he despises but that Arthur cannot keep his hands off of, stroking and cupping, tracing the bones and the faintly visible ribbons of blue and green, the shadowed hollows and smooth swells.

He presses a kiss to the dimples low on Merlin’s spine, and then his warmth is gone, lifted away, and Merlin hears a rustle and a clinking of bottles, a muttered curse as something falls.

Arthur splays his hand against Merlin’s hip, thumb stroking over the skin. The stillness drags on a little too long, broken only by breaths that sound worried rather than aroused. Merlin lifts his head enough to squint over his shoulder.

Arthur’s eyes are clouded, his teeth worrying at his lower lip, and Merlin wants to flip over, pull him forward and down and cover that lip with kisses and nips of his own, until it is swollen and pink and indecent.

Instead he asks, “Lost your nerve, have you?”

A half-hearted smack to his arse makes him jump in surprise and amusement.

“Of course not, idiot. I just-- wanted to be sure.”

Merlin sighs and drops his chin into the coverlet, and then he does push up, turning to face Arthur in a half-seated, half-sprawled tangle of limbs. “I am sure. Have been for a long time.”

Arthur flickers a smile, though his eyes are still doubtful. Merlin cups his jaw, kisses him softly. “Are you sure, though? Do you really want to cross this line? With a servant, no less?” He grins, leans backwards, fingers still lingering on Arthur’s face. “Not even a proper servant, at that.”

Arthur finally smiles, ducks his head to kiss Merlin’s palm. “You’re definitely not a proper servant, and you haven’t ever been. You should know you’re much more to me than that.”

“Oh yeah?” Merlin raises an eyebrow, mocking. Inwardly his heart makes an extra thud, and he clenches his other hand in the blankets to still the trembling.

Arthur grins back, spark and flame, and there is something in his eyes that Merlin cannot - will not - name. “You’re a bloody _awful_ servant.”

Merlin laughs, head tilted back, free and joyous. Arthur loves him. Arthur loves him, and that is all he will ever need.

He’s still laughing when Arthur tackles him, shoves him face-first into the bed and bites at the bone near the top of his spine. Merlin makes an involuntary noise of surprise.

“Now who’s not sure?” There is an edge to Arthur’s voice, a dark promise that reignites the banked fires between them.

Arthur strokes a hand, warm and slippery with some kind of oil, down Merlin’s spine and over the rise of his arse, barely touching. He leaves goose pimples in his wake, and Merlin shivers.

The hand drops lower, spreading him open and circling before nudging inside, one finger at a time. The initial discomfort and unfamiliarity is replaced by a warmth that trickles and spreads, that turns into a flood of arousal and leaves Merlin panting, twisting his narrow fingers in the coverlet and gasping incoherent words that might just be variations on Arthur’s name.

He draws it out until Merlin gasps, “Fuck, Arthur, _please_ \--” Until Merlin is two seconds away from begging and Arthur is just as bad.

Arthur brushes his lips over Merlin’s shoulder, mutters something into his skin, and then braces his hand by Merlin’s narrow hip, and presses inwards and up with a groan.

Merlin feels the mattress give underneath him, feels a slow burn spread painfully along his nerves. He bends, elbows braced and shaking as he bites his lips to keep in his cries.

It goes on forever, and then it doesn’t, and he can no longer tell whose skin is whose, where Arthur ends and he begins. Arthur slides his arms under Merlin’s, links their fingers together, and thrusts slowly, deeply, holding back, until the pain fades and dies, lost under the sparking embers of pleasure. They rock together, legs entwined, as Merlin drops his head between his shoulder blades. Arthur speeds up, harder, faster, and Merlin cries out, hears his cry lost in Arthur’s, feels the shudders that ripple through the body above his own, the pulsing inside, the twinge of pain from a silver ring crushed between narrow fingers.

Arthur collapses on top of him, and Merlin doesn’t care. He drifts for a while, warm and sated, feeling his heartbeat slow and his breath even out. Arthur’s heartbeat at his back is a comfort, just as much as his weight.

Merlin is nearly asleep when Arthur peels himself slowly from Merlin’s skin, apologetically ruffling his hair when Merlin grumbles sleepily. He yanks at the covers and hauls them over their shoulders, and Merlin lets his eyes close.

When he opens them, the sky outside the diamond panes has darkened from firebrand to bruised, and the trees of the far forest are black against it.

The air is cooler now, damp with an early dew, and Merlin shivers at the contrast between it and the incandescent body behind his. Arthur slides a heavy leg over his hip, wraps his hands around Merlin’s fingers and presses them to his chest.

Merlin can feel his own heartbeat, steady now, as well as Arthur’s at his back. A warm hand strokes over his forehead, and pushes back a few sweaty strands of raven hair. Arthur kisses, softly, at the bumps near the top of the spine before settling in, cheek to neck, and loosing a sigh. There’s nowhere they need to be, nothing they need to do, at least for now.

And then Merlin tenses, warm afterglow shattered with adrenaline as he remembers that he was supposed to polish Arthur’s boots and clean his shirt for the banquet tomorrow. A squeeze of his hand brings him back, and Arthur murmurs, half-asleep and sated, to leave it.

Merlin wastes a smile wondering how it will go over when Arthur has to wear an everyday shirt made of linen for the event. He’s drifting, almost completely asleep, when an image of soft leather boots swims to the surface, spattered with dung and mud from the hunt yesterday.

The smile returns, wider than before, and he falls asleep still wearing it.


End file.
